My dream- five months post-divorce

It was an odd dream.  In this dream, I and the kids drive into the city for an event, which is funny because I don't drive in the city.  Traffic is crazy, I am in midtown. We spot Ex and he and I start arguing-- I don't know about what.  But the memory floods back of what our arguments were like,  with me trying to play the "no, no, wait" to his angry and accusatory comments towards me.  No matter what I did, I was wrong-- in what I now know to be gaslighting on his part.  He was very unhappy with our relationship, with his life.  Clearly, in his mind it had come to a head.  

As I would say, "but no, no wait- listen, let me explain..." He would hear the trigger that would always set him off- my saying the word "no" and "but" as confirmation for him that I did not validate his feelings. 

But how could I, really.  He was demanding validation that I "suck". And that no matter what he did, he felt I would poo poo it- which was true for so many things, I will admit.  Though I tried through the many years of our marriage to acknowledge and accomodate his desires- my financial needs of stability would not let him (or me) indulge in the extravagant or what I felt was foolhardy.  I would not agree, for example, to his desire to lease a fancy car for him.  Instead, I wanted to buy a similar model but one within our reach- ie. used, low mileage BMW instead of the expensive newest model that he eventually leased on his own.  It did not make sense at the time to me, especially as he was never home- away from home for typically 65 hours a week in the city himself with his car parked at the train station.  It belied, of course, a much greater issue for me, for us- his lack of presence in our lives (mine and the kids).

Eventually, he would blurt out in anger that this absence was because of "me, me, me".  And he would come home, the kids delighted and he would try to sequester, in brief shots, time with just him and the kids.  And I was miserable-- because I felt he should at least first spend a few minutes with me, his wife, alone.  He called me jealous of our children, but I never was.  It was more a matter of attempting to resuscitate our relationship, for the sake of us and of course, our family.  He did not see it that way-- but by that point, unbeknownst to me, he was already committed to leaving.  

Or perhaps I did know this internally.  My heart was breaking, it is certain.  The real certainty was this: for all our mismatched philosophies in life, I loved him. And he did, for many years, love me.

In the later conclusion of my dream, I remember he was yelling at me in the street, kids stuck in the car with the windows closed (looking apprehensive, oh how I remember this in real life!).  He screams, and then says "if I didn't love you so much...!" And I immediately in my dream, slip in the words, "but I love you too".  And in my dream he stops screaming, fight held at a standstill. Unsolved, unreconciled, love acknowledged...but it was not enough.

Not enough.

** Can I add a footnote to my dream?  It did not go unnoticed- my mom, who has passed these many years now (11?) showed up in my dream as well.  I have been feeling sad lately, and missing her
particularly as I wondered if that, perhaps, she really was not there looking over my shoulder from heaven.  Lately, it has felt...well, alone.  So alone.  So in my dream, she came to me, as my dream Ex and I were fighting, to say that she (my Dad was there too, in the back!) going to ride in the car home with me, the kids, and Ex.  It was strange...but felt real.  A glimmer in the face of sadness.